Inhofe: ‘Climategate’ Should Have Ended the Global Warming Debate

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said he was the only Republican that liked Lisa Jackson, President Obama’s first Environmental Protection Agency administrator, because she “could not tell a lie.”

“You don’t fit in this administration unless you can lie,” Inhofe, chairman of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works, said at the Heritage Foundation.

Inhofe recalled Jackson saying “no” when he asked if the EPA pursuing cap and trade through regulations would lower CO2 emissions worldwide. “Climategate” occurred after their conversation, which stalled widespread federal action on carbon at the time.

“She said no, it wouldn’t do that, and the reason is this has been where the problem is. The problem is in China, you’ve got to do it in India, you’ve got to do it in Mexico and if you don’t do that you could have the reverse effect. If you chase away our manufacturing base here, where do they go? They go to places like China and like India and it could have the effect of increasing it and not decreasing it,” Inhofe said. “Well, that wasn’t a very popular response to the question with the administration. Climategate should have ended it right there at that time.”

Inhofe said Tom Steyer, a billionaire who retired from Farallon Capital Management, became heavily involved in the 2014 midterm election on behalf of Democrats because conservatives are winning the climate change debate.

“Sen. Whitehouse has now given his 100th floor speech, I think you know that, and if you listen to them they are all exactly the same. I happen to like that guy. I don’t blame him for being the direct beneficiary of all this money that’s being – the Tom Steyer money and all that – because he wasn’t even up for re-election at that time but nonetheless, there’s a reason for that first speech, which was April 18, 2012, that was right after Tom Steyer said he was going to put $100 million into campaigns in the 2014 campaign cycle,” Inhofe said.

During a Senate floor speech in May, Whitehouse said anyone paying attention knows the special interests are lying about climate change.

“Anybody paying attention knows they are influence-peddling on a monumental scale. And while the polluters have done their best to hide that their denial tentacles are all part of the same denial beast, people all over who are paying attention have figured it out. One day there will be a reckoning,” he said.

Inhofe labeled Jay Faison, founder of SnapAV, the new Steyer. Faison is hoping to convince GOP lawmakers to act on climate change and he has pledged to spend $175 million in the next election cycle.

“We have found that he has a lot of interests in solar energy,” Inhofe said, referring to Faison’s foundation reportedly investing millions in solar energy.

President Obama’s climate action proposal includes a “clean power plan” for states, which the EPA described as the “first-ever carbon pollution standards for existing power plants that will protect the health of our children and put our nation on the path toward a 30 percent reduction in carbon pollution from the power sector by 2030.”

Inhofe views the clean power plan as worse than a cap and trade bill.

“Legislation affects the emissions of individuals or companies that emit 12,000 tons of CO2 and if you do it by regulation that would be under the Clean Air Act and it would be 250,000 tons,” he said.